Page 36 of Greedy Grizzly
“I don’t see where he went wrong. If you knew how he felt, you would’ve been gone.”
“Exactly! I wasn’t good enough for him. I didn’t fit in his world. He was a high-powered defense lawyer. I would’ve made him look ridiculous and I couldn’t do that to him.”
“Because you loved him.”
“Yes. It tore me up to break his heart, but I was doing him a favor.” Tears blurred my vision and my heart ached all over again for Bryan. “I wasn’t elegant and refined. Educated and from a respectable family. I would have ruined him.”
A double knock jolted me on the bed.
“Yo, Toby!” Boxer’s deep voice sliced through my wooden door. “We need you. There was an incident at the mother chapter in South Dakota!”
Toby vaulted off the bed and opened the door. “Is Storm’s dad okay?”
“He’s fine. But others didn’t fare too well. A couple of bombs hit the clubhouse. We need your surveillance expertise.”
“Oh my, God!” I shrieked and covered my mouth.
Toby turned back to look at me. “Will you be okay?”
“Yes, go. We can finish another time.”
Toby and Boxer didn’t waste a second and ran down the hallway, and commotion ensued in the clubhouse.
God, I hoped everyone was okay in South Dakota. Surely, someone had called Landon to come home and help deal with the aftermath of the bombing.
Who would bomb Storm’s dad’s club? Well, I knew without a shadow of a doubt, whoever had done this would pay the price with their life.
9
STORM
Tears burned behind my tired eyes as I took in the destruction. After I got the call, I’d gotten a crew together and rode through the night to get here. No matter what I thought I’d see, it didn’t come close to what was surrounding me.
A couple of holes were in the wall of the clubhouse’s bar. Tables and chairs were flipped on their sides as people had tried to escape. Some hadn’t made it out, like my youngest sister, Megan.
Wet streamers hung from the walls near the stage. A large, wooden sign withHappy 18thBirthday, Meganon it was turned on its axis. Half of it was burned by the fire.
Last night, Megan was celebrating another year in her young life and didn’t live to see another day.
I clenched my back teeth and rolled my hands into fists. Retribution for Megan pumped in my veins.I will fuckin’ kill whoever did this with my bare hands!
“Jesus, can you imagine the chaos in here after the first bomb hit?”
I cut my gaze at Toby. “I’m trying not to.” I stepped over a puddle, tinged red and black, and went toward the less damaged side of the room.
“Grizzly just checked in. He should be here in fifteen minutes,” Track said. “I’m having flashbacks to when Wolf’s and Jill’s apartment above Sister Chic was torched.”
“Yeah, the dank, burnt smell in here made me remember that too. Fuckin’ Dirty Hunters.” Luckily, nobody had been hurt at Wolf’s place.
“At least we knew who was behind it.”
“True. Get the crew cleaning. I don’t want my dad and Jane to see this place a mess longer than necessary.” They were both held up in their bedroom, completely destroyed.
“I’m on it, Prez.”
I scrubbed the side of my face, still shocked at the loss and wreckage around me. The innocent teenagers enjoying a party with music and dancing shouldn’t have been a dangerous activity. They had no idea what had been heading for them. They wouldn’t have believed they were spending their last minutes away from their parents and loved ones.
Jesus, I rubbed the ache in my chest as my beautiful Birdie’s face flashed behind my eyes. The thought of losing my daughter, losing her and Chase, or my Angel, would be more than I could take. I would die right on the spot, never wanting to live a second without them.
